Anything You Want
by Courtney Kathrys
Summary: Crumpets and tea and Mrs. Weasley. Memories and death and abandonment. Strength and weakness and family. No Ship!


Name: Courtney Kathrys  
  
Title: Anything You Want  
  
E-mail: Faeriedeath@hotmail.com  
  
Summery: Crumpets and tea and Mrs. Weasley. Memories and death and abandonment. Strength and Weakness and "Boys on the Side."  
  
Notes: Nearly all the dialogue in here is taken from the movie "Boys on the Side." Those quotes inspired me to write this... funny enough it is as opposite from the actual movie as humanly possible. One-Shot.  
  
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are by JK Rowling. I only own the plot. Dialogue, most of it at least, from the movie "Boys on the Side." The actual quote "Never Complain, Never Explain" was said by Katherine Hepburn, as well as in the movie.  
  
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Harry Potter remembered tea and crumpets. He remembered big Yorkshire puddings, and the best toast he'd ever eaten. More importantly, he remembered the aroma in the cozy Weasley kitchen as Mrs. Weasley slaved religiously over her food. She couldn't give her children much, but they never went hungry – Molly Weasley made sure of that.  
  
So when Harry passed the small café, he paused for a moment. The sight of a woman and her teenage son sitting together, laughing over a cup of tea and a plate of crumpets in a small table for two. Without a second thought he went into the café, and sat himself at a table in the back, ordering the same for himself. While he waited for the food he continued to watch the boy and his mother. There was nothing overly significant about them to jog his memory. It was their food, and their laughter, and the way she filled his tea cup without a thought when it became less than halfway full, and the way he insisted that he couldn't eat one more crumpet without bursting. The whole scene brought him back to his life in the Burrow.  
  
He hadn't allowed himself to be back there for a long while. He had cost them too much, taken too much from them. Though they would insist to the contrary, he knew that they would prefer he just left them in peace. He didn't know why he still thought of them as a them. They were separate entities now. Ginny was grown up, married to a rich French aristocrat and last Harry knew she hadn't kept in touch with anyone. She wanted to sever herself from England, from Voldemort. Percy was in Azkaban, following the fall of the Dark Lord. Though his turn had been suspected, it hadn't been prepared for, and it was taken hard. Fred and George had been killed in the Diagon Alley Massacre. Bill in the Gringotts revolt. Charlie in battle. Arthur was in St. Mungo's, in a coma no one could brake. Ron was also in St. Mungo's, he shared a room with Neville's parents. Molly was the only on left. Puttering around the Burrow in her old age, continuing to clean and cook for ten. Though she was the only one who ever came to the table these days, besides maybe Hermione.  
  
Thinking of her now, for the first time in nearly five years, he began to feel guilty. He had stripped her of her family, and he had left her as well. The tea and crumpets were placed in front of him, and slowly he began to eat, mechanically, recalling the last time he had eaten tea and crumpets.  
  
It was a beautiful sunny day. It was always sunny on the days the worst news was delivered. He had come to personally tell her of Percy's conviction. He had been the last of the children to leave her. She had only nodded, and held the door open to him. Not a request, but a demand, and Harry could refuse her nothing at that point.  
  
She poured him his tea, and buttered his crumpet, and watched him eat. He had been nineteen at the time. Too thin and frail from years of battle, and the powerful magic he was using was beginning to wear him in obvious signs. He had been sick for weeks, witnessing horrors that none would have conceived possible. Voldemort had been defeated a month ago, and the trials were beginning, and Harry could scarcely stand, let alone testify against thousands of prisoners.  
  
"It's not right, losing your children. Children are supposed to live after you."  
  
Harry said nothing, and continued to sip his tea, scared he's break down if he looked up at her. But she hadn't been talking to him, she had been conversing with the tea pot in her hands.  
  
But after minutes with no more speaking, Harry knew he'd have to talk.  
  
"I'm leaving, Mrs. Weasley. I have to leave here, England, everything. I'm not well and the longer I stay the worse I get."  
  
He remembered the pot falling from her hands and shattering on the floor. She didn't apologize for the accident, and quickly repaired it, setting it on the table before her shaking hands could drop it again.  
  
"You too Harry? Must you leave as well?"  
  
He felt his throat tighten, and he continued to avoid her eyes, knowing he'd break down and cry if he saw her mournful look. So he studied his crumpet.  
  
"I'm dying, Mrs. Weasley. If I don't leave that guess will be a reality."  
  
She sat opposite him now, cradling a cup of tea in her aging hands. He could hear her stirring it, though he knew it was black.  
  
"I know that you're not well, dear. I don't know what it is and I don't want to know. But I know you'll get better. You were always the strong one. I can't lose you. I can't just lose everybody. I do the best I can, dear. I know it's not enough, and I'm sorry. But that's what you get in life, you know? You get whoever you end up with. Whoever is willing to stick by you and fight for you when everyone else is gone? And it isn't always who you expect. But you just have to make do."  
  
Harry felt his insides unravel at her words, her voice. The pain and the need and the want. He felt ashamed for being so selfish. Attacked for wanting to get away.  
  
"I'm not complaining Mrs. Weasley."  
  
He could hear her smile, rather than see it, for he wasn't looking at her. But he knew her well enough. Knew her in Ron, in Ginny, in Fred and George and all of her other children. He even knew her in himself. He knew when she smiled, what it looked like, and what it meant without ever seeing her. He heard her smile in her voice.  
  
"Never complain, never explain. An old Muggle American said that once, don't remember where I picked it up from. It's a good motto isn't it?"  
  
Harry found himself smiling, despite himself, and nodding. They spoke no more for a long time. Then Harry bid his leave and exited quickly. He hadn't seen her since. He hadn't even seen her then.  
  
The crumpets were getting cold and hard, the tea was frigid. Night was beginning to emerge. Slowly, Harry left some money on the table and left the café. He made the long walk back to his flat in silence, not quite wanting to apparate. Wales was cold this time of year, and he cuddled into his cloak a little more. Missing the heat of Italy in the cold he now experienced. The cold was bittersweet, and he relished the pain of it. Missing that as well when he entered his flat.  
  
That night he went to bed with memories on his mind, and a knowledge that he would never be strong enough to go back further than he was now.  
  
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End file.
